For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with conflicting emotions about the British DNA coursing through my blood.
Through different branches of my Mother's ancestry, my family is from two different parts of England; Dover in the south, and York, in the middle.
Battling these ancestral branches are a Scottish branch and German one. Come to think of it, maybe it was the Scots and the Germans who separately moved from their own countries to York. Anyway, they all eventually left England for America, and here we are.
On my Father's side was his Father, a seafairing Norwegian who, by himself at 18, took a ship from Norway to Liverpool, England, another ship across the ocean to Montreal, a train across the American continent to Seattle, and within a couple months was in Alaska on a fishing boat.
My Father's Mother was also from Norway, but when she researched her own ancestry, became ebarrassingly distraught to discover a Jewish branch of the family.
For the record I want to reconcile my Grandmother's WASP and Jewish mixture. I embrace it...Mazel Tov!
The reason I am writing this, though, is to try to put my maternal British heritage into some sort of perspective.
As someone prone toward the creative arts, I have sometimes felt a strong identification with my British DNA.
Shakespeare wrote my favorite piece of writing. Charlie Dickens knocked off a few good yarns. And I would rather watch a British detecetive show than an American one any day of the week.
These pro-Brit feelings are on one side of the coin. On the other side - and this is where the problems arise - must be the Scottish part of me, unable to shake the "Trainspotting" line about Brits being 'wankers.'
Or maybe it is just my rebellious American side.
Several years ago, when my sister was studying at Leeds University in England, we began corresponding about the discovery that we apparently qualified for a British Coat-of-Arms.
It was fun for a while. we brainstormed and discussed Coat-of-Arms themes (a family of teachers, writers, and amateur athletes ought to inspire some interesting design ideas).
then something happened inside of me. Deep in the middle of this process of pursuing a British Coat-of-Arms, I woke up one morning and said, "You know what, screw the British! Screw their pretentious Coat-of-Arms bull----" (ryhmes with baseball mitt). And the idea died as quickly as it had been born.
So, now I ask myself, what's it going to be? Do I embrace the legacy of literature, theater, and culture? Or do I reject the questionble legacy of Empire, exploitation, and unintended political comedy? (And someone please tell me - what is the point of a 'royal family' in the 21st century?)
The only British politicians I have ever had any respect for were characters portrayed by Monty Python.
So, if someone can tell me who is currently the head of the Ministry Of Silly Walks, then maybe we have something to talk about.
Peter Wick
April 13, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
13. Bob Dylan's Dentist - March, 2013
Living in Los Angeles comes with its own unique brand of surprises.
You never know where the latest bizarre celebrity story is going to come from.
I was sitting in a dentist chair recently, leaning back the way only a dentist chair can force you to lean back. I was looking up at the ceiling waiting for the dentist to begin poking around in my mouth, when I overheard a conversation about Bob Dylan's teeth.
The two dentists in the office were ignoring me. They were talking about their favorite music. They seemd to agree on classic rock. I felt a strong impulse to jump into the conversation and suggest that classic rock is great, but try giving something more recent a fighting chance; the grunge era perhaps, or hip hop from ten years ago (pre-Jimmy-Fallon era Roots, Talib Kweli, Jurassic 5). I stayed silent, though.
As I listened, I realized that dentists have a different take, even on music, than the rest of us.
One of the dentists, it turn out, has a colleague in town who pokes around inside Bob Dylan's mouth.
"Oh, the stories," the first dentist said.
"Yeah?"
"Bob Dylan comes in wih his 'handler,' head down. He never looks you in the eye. Apparently he is completely unable to communicate on any kind of normal level."
"Really! huh," said the second dentist
I lost interest when they started talking about Bob Dylan's periodontal issues.
I wish I had not overheard the story.
On one level I am always aware that celebrities are real, living breathing people, with the same physical limitations as the rest of us, but somehow it feels slightly wrong to listen to, say, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," and suddenly become overwelmed with concern about the man's gums.
I suppose that's better than listening to the cover version by Guns And Roses, though.
Somehow I just assume Axel Rose's mouth is a disaster area.
Next up? I have to schedule an eye appointment. I don't have a regular eye Doctor in Los Angeles, so I'm free to try somewhere new.
Where will I likely hear stories about Johnny Depp? I just have a feeling that guy's as blind as a bat.
-Peter Wick
March 13, 2013
You never know where the latest bizarre celebrity story is going to come from.
I was sitting in a dentist chair recently, leaning back the way only a dentist chair can force you to lean back. I was looking up at the ceiling waiting for the dentist to begin poking around in my mouth, when I overheard a conversation about Bob Dylan's teeth.
The two dentists in the office were ignoring me. They were talking about their favorite music. They seemd to agree on classic rock. I felt a strong impulse to jump into the conversation and suggest that classic rock is great, but try giving something more recent a fighting chance; the grunge era perhaps, or hip hop from ten years ago (pre-Jimmy-Fallon era Roots, Talib Kweli, Jurassic 5). I stayed silent, though.
As I listened, I realized that dentists have a different take, even on music, than the rest of us.
One of the dentists, it turn out, has a colleague in town who pokes around inside Bob Dylan's mouth.
"Oh, the stories," the first dentist said.
"Yeah?"
"Bob Dylan comes in wih his 'handler,' head down. He never looks you in the eye. Apparently he is completely unable to communicate on any kind of normal level."
"Really! huh," said the second dentist
I lost interest when they started talking about Bob Dylan's periodontal issues.
I wish I had not overheard the story.
On one level I am always aware that celebrities are real, living breathing people, with the same physical limitations as the rest of us, but somehow it feels slightly wrong to listen to, say, "Knocking on Heaven's Door," and suddenly become overwelmed with concern about the man's gums.
I suppose that's better than listening to the cover version by Guns And Roses, though.
Somehow I just assume Axel Rose's mouth is a disaster area.
Next up? I have to schedule an eye appointment. I don't have a regular eye Doctor in Los Angeles, so I'm free to try somewhere new.
Where will I likely hear stories about Johnny Depp? I just have a feeling that guy's as blind as a bat.
-Peter Wick
March 13, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
12. Facebook, pt. 2, or Life in the Woods - February, 2013
"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes." -Henry David Thoreau
A little more than a year ago, in the first installment of Simple Displeasures, I compared dropping off of Facebook to Thoreau's move to Walden Pond in the 1840's. He lived alone, grew his own food, and enjoyed the peace and quiet of solitude.
Thoreau stayed at Walden Pond for two years before moving back in with civilization.
The book Walden is his permanent record of those two years.
I stayed off Facebook for one year.
I wonder if Thoreau felt the same sense of guilt that I feel; a need to justify my return to civilization, a slight embarrassment when explaining it to my other anti-Facebook friends.
I will admit that I enjoy being in touch with friends who I don't see in person, but I still distrust the Facebook Corporation every bit as much as Thoreau distrusted 1840's civilization.
I have also been surprised to discover that a growing number of my real friends have also been turning against Facebook. Several of them have either deactivated their Facebook accounts or they simply don't log in anymore.
Before you gang up on me and call out my comparison, I am aware that on the surface, dropping off of Facebook seems nothing at all like moving to the woods.
In fact, I also have a deep secretive impulse to someday ACTUALLY move to the woods, without a computer, cell phone, car, television, radio, ipad, or any other gadget invented since 1850. All I would need are a collection of books (you remenmber those things? those bulky contraptions made of paper?) It's true. I might do it.
I won't last two years, like Thoreau did, but two months like that sounds deliciously quiet and peaceful to me.
This is the sad state of anti-social behavior in the 21st century; two months without social media is an eternity.
And even the guy who threatens to drop everything and move to the woods is now back on Facebook.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau
Peter Wick
February 14, 2013
A little more than a year ago, in the first installment of Simple Displeasures, I compared dropping off of Facebook to Thoreau's move to Walden Pond in the 1840's. He lived alone, grew his own food, and enjoyed the peace and quiet of solitude.
Thoreau stayed at Walden Pond for two years before moving back in with civilization.
The book Walden is his permanent record of those two years.
I stayed off Facebook for one year.
I wonder if Thoreau felt the same sense of guilt that I feel; a need to justify my return to civilization, a slight embarrassment when explaining it to my other anti-Facebook friends.
I will admit that I enjoy being in touch with friends who I don't see in person, but I still distrust the Facebook Corporation every bit as much as Thoreau distrusted 1840's civilization.
I have also been surprised to discover that a growing number of my real friends have also been turning against Facebook. Several of them have either deactivated their Facebook accounts or they simply don't log in anymore.
Before you gang up on me and call out my comparison, I am aware that on the surface, dropping off of Facebook seems nothing at all like moving to the woods.
In fact, I also have a deep secretive impulse to someday ACTUALLY move to the woods, without a computer, cell phone, car, television, radio, ipad, or any other gadget invented since 1850. All I would need are a collection of books (you remenmber those things? those bulky contraptions made of paper?) It's true. I might do it.
I won't last two years, like Thoreau did, but two months like that sounds deliciously quiet and peaceful to me.
This is the sad state of anti-social behavior in the 21st century; two months without social media is an eternity.
And even the guy who threatens to drop everything and move to the woods is now back on Facebook.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau
Peter Wick
February 14, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
11. Preview of "Key West" - The novel - January, 2013
In early 2007 my frend Robby - Robert Silk - sent me a magazine article he wrote titled, "Wanna Bet?" It explored the history of illegal gambling in Key West Florida. I liked the article, and began talking to Robby about expanding the idea further. Before I knew it Robby was sending me additional research, and a whole world of 1950 guys-wearing-hats began grabbing ahold of me.
Stephen Trumbull and Bernie Papy were real people, a journalist and a corrupt politician, repsectively. Papy was a State Representative, but he ran Key West the way Al Capone ran Chicago two decades earlier. Trumbull wrote a column for the Miami Herald. They didn't like each other much.
Finally I have written the story up as a novel, and below is an excerpt from it. It begins with "Dear Cuz." That was Trumbull's column. He always began with, "Dear Cuz."
"Dear Cuz;
When a sharp blade cuts into you, it is quick, cold. You barely realize what is happening at first. It cuts clean, surgically. The pain almost begins with a question mark.
When a dull blade cuts into you, like the one Papy's goons used on me, it saws into you like a rusty kitchen knife. There is no question what is happening, because the pain is crude and dirty."
Trumbull was groaning and writhing on Eva's bed. She was wrapping a large bandage around his naked torso.
It was the next morning. He didn't remember coming inside, but he remembered the last few minutes before passing out.
"Hold still. You're making it bleed more," Eva said.
"Don't tell me to hold still," he said nastily.
She wasn't going to complain about his mood. "Lay back," she said.
"Don't - Aaaagh!" He dropped his head as she pressed the bandage onto the wound.
"Lie down. Relax. I have to clean the wound."
"Alright, alright," he said. He leaned back in fits and starts, stopping with each shot of pain, and moving again when it was tolerable.
Eva dabbed his wound like a professional. She had seen blood before. She didn't like it, but they both knew Trumbull was in good hands. "You're lucky," she said. "They didn't cut too deep."
"Lucky!?"
"You're alive. That's lucky."
Trumbull looked at her. "They chose to let me live," he said. "They wanted to prove something. They were just making a point - Aaagh!"
"Relax," she said, folding blood stained bandages. She put the bandages in a pile at the foot of the bed.
Trumbull's head was on the pillow now, and he spoke while looking straight overhead at the ceiling. "They figured I'd be a walking message, bandaged up, scared."
"Are you scared?" Eva asked.
"Are you?"
"Yes," she said.
The novel "Key West" will be available, first as an E-Book at Amazon.com by January 20th, 2013, (probably a couple days before, actually) and then in paperback a week and a half after that.
I want to thank Wheelman Press for publishing it, and Integrity Artists Management for arranging the details.
Enjoy.
-Peter Wick
January 12, 2013
Stephen Trumbull and Bernie Papy were real people, a journalist and a corrupt politician, repsectively. Papy was a State Representative, but he ran Key West the way Al Capone ran Chicago two decades earlier. Trumbull wrote a column for the Miami Herald. They didn't like each other much.
Finally I have written the story up as a novel, and below is an excerpt from it. It begins with "Dear Cuz." That was Trumbull's column. He always began with, "Dear Cuz."
"Dear Cuz;
When a sharp blade cuts into you, it is quick, cold. You barely realize what is happening at first. It cuts clean, surgically. The pain almost begins with a question mark.
When a dull blade cuts into you, like the one Papy's goons used on me, it saws into you like a rusty kitchen knife. There is no question what is happening, because the pain is crude and dirty."
Trumbull was groaning and writhing on Eva's bed. She was wrapping a large bandage around his naked torso.
It was the next morning. He didn't remember coming inside, but he remembered the last few minutes before passing out.
"Hold still. You're making it bleed more," Eva said.
"Don't tell me to hold still," he said nastily.
She wasn't going to complain about his mood. "Lay back," she said.
"Don't - Aaaagh!" He dropped his head as she pressed the bandage onto the wound.
"Lie down. Relax. I have to clean the wound."
"Alright, alright," he said. He leaned back in fits and starts, stopping with each shot of pain, and moving again when it was tolerable.
Eva dabbed his wound like a professional. She had seen blood before. She didn't like it, but they both knew Trumbull was in good hands. "You're lucky," she said. "They didn't cut too deep."
"Lucky!?"
"You're alive. That's lucky."
Trumbull looked at her. "They chose to let me live," he said. "They wanted to prove something. They were just making a point - Aaagh!"
"Relax," she said, folding blood stained bandages. She put the bandages in a pile at the foot of the bed.
Trumbull's head was on the pillow now, and he spoke while looking straight overhead at the ceiling. "They figured I'd be a walking message, bandaged up, scared."
"Are you scared?" Eva asked.
"Are you?"
"Yes," she said.
The novel "Key West" will be available, first as an E-Book at Amazon.com by January 20th, 2013, (probably a couple days before, actually) and then in paperback a week and a half after that.
I want to thank Wheelman Press for publishing it, and Integrity Artists Management for arranging the details.
Enjoy.
-Peter Wick
January 12, 2013
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
10. Free 'Pussy Riot' - Nov, 2012
According to several aging Russian hippies, bootlegged copies of The Beatles music had as much to do with the downfall of the Soviet Union as any politician or political movement.
The songs of the Beatles - banned by the Soviet leadership in the 1960's - permeated an underground Russian youth culture so thoroughly, that by the time that generation reached maturity in the 1980's, a majority of Russian society had little or no stomach left for Soviet ideology.
They were over it. Art - in the form of music - had enlightened them in ways beyond what even John, Paul, George, or Ringo could have intended.
Art and creativity can do that. It can change the way entire generations think.
'The Soviet Union' is a historical relic now. In its place are Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and several other smaller independent countries.
Russia is currrently ruled by one Vladimir Putin, and his hold on power is so absolute that you can be arrested for criticizing his policies.
This is what happened to performance-art-feminist-punk-band Pussy Riot.
In February, earlier this year, they staged what has been called a flash-mob-style invasion of a Russian Orthodox church and performed their "Punk Prayer," before being arrested.
They have been found guilty of disrupting public order, and hooliganism (I thought you had to be involved in a drunken fight outside a soccer game to be convicted of hooliganism). Two of the band members have managed to flee the country, and one saw her conviction dropped (because she was actually arrested BEFORE she had a chance to perform the offending song). Two members of Pussy Riot remain in prison, sent to what are described as 'penal colonies.'
I and many of my friends identify, in one discipline or another, as "Artists." For the most part we only have to worry about superficial things; Am I making a living at this or do I have to get a day job? Will I get the Million-dollar contract or do I have to settle for something smaller?
It's easy to lose sight of deeper issues.
There are no more courageous Artists in this world right now than the five members of Pussy Riot.
Earlier today I joined Amnesty International. I had been thinking about it for some time.
The recent Presidential campaigns in the U.S. left me feeling a little, shall we say, UNDERNOURISHED, regarding the issues that actually seem to matter.
But this is not about living in one country as opposed to another. We are a planetary family. What happens to an Artist in Russia affects us all.
-Peter Wick
November 14, 2012
The songs of the Beatles - banned by the Soviet leadership in the 1960's - permeated an underground Russian youth culture so thoroughly, that by the time that generation reached maturity in the 1980's, a majority of Russian society had little or no stomach left for Soviet ideology.
They were over it. Art - in the form of music - had enlightened them in ways beyond what even John, Paul, George, or Ringo could have intended.
Art and creativity can do that. It can change the way entire generations think.
'The Soviet Union' is a historical relic now. In its place are Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and several other smaller independent countries.
Russia is currrently ruled by one Vladimir Putin, and his hold on power is so absolute that you can be arrested for criticizing his policies.
This is what happened to performance-art-feminist-punk-band Pussy Riot.
In February, earlier this year, they staged what has been called a flash-mob-style invasion of a Russian Orthodox church and performed their "Punk Prayer," before being arrested.
They have been found guilty of disrupting public order, and hooliganism (I thought you had to be involved in a drunken fight outside a soccer game to be convicted of hooliganism). Two of the band members have managed to flee the country, and one saw her conviction dropped (because she was actually arrested BEFORE she had a chance to perform the offending song). Two members of Pussy Riot remain in prison, sent to what are described as 'penal colonies.'
I and many of my friends identify, in one discipline or another, as "Artists." For the most part we only have to worry about superficial things; Am I making a living at this or do I have to get a day job? Will I get the Million-dollar contract or do I have to settle for something smaller?
It's easy to lose sight of deeper issues.
There are no more courageous Artists in this world right now than the five members of Pussy Riot.
Earlier today I joined Amnesty International. I had been thinking about it for some time.
The recent Presidential campaigns in the U.S. left me feeling a little, shall we say, UNDERNOURISHED, regarding the issues that actually seem to matter.
But this is not about living in one country as opposed to another. We are a planetary family. What happens to an Artist in Russia affects us all.
-Peter Wick
November 14, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
9. It's 2012 - Do You Know Where Your Doomsday Is? - Oct. 2012
I've been studying up on the end of the world. It's about two months away, on December 21, 2012.
It turns out that the Mayans, The Sumerians, and Nostradamus all agreed that December 21, 2012 would mark a catastrophe for our planet.
At least we think Nostradamus agreed.
He wrote something about a ball of fire and a trail of sparks, and everyone who knows anything agreees that he meant a comet would wipe us out two months from now.
A few dissenting analysts think he just foresaw those Youtube guys who accidentally light their butts on fire. But what do they know!?
The Mayans had a five thousand year calendar that ends December 21. The Mayans, everyone knows, were gifted at predicting the future. They once predicted "The seas shall rise," and by god, sometime in the last five thousand years there were some really big waves that washed up on some stuff and got everything super wet.
They figured out how long a year on Venus lasted.
Most alarmingly, they predicted how intense Steve Buscemi would be in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire." There's a hyroglyph, on the wall of a Mayan pyramid, of a man's face that looks so much like the poster for season 3, it cannot possibly be a coincidence.
Of course, as stand-up comedian Heneghen pointed out recently, they seem to have missed that whole part where the Spaniards come and wipe them out with war and disease. But who are we to judge? Which of us has never missed the forest for the trees?
The Sumerians are a tougher nut to crack. They left lots of tablets with symbols and pictures on them, but they are all in a dead language that no one has been able to fully translate.
So, while there is a series of tablets that many interpret as saying that a "planet beyond Pluto will make it's first appearance in the Solar System since 36,000 years ago, destroying all currently existing planets," it is also possible, according to some, that these tablets alternatively say, "There's a yummy thing in my pocket that I'm not going to share with you and - oh, darn it, it's all melted now and I have to go scrub my pants on the big rock in the river."
It's just hard to say who is right.
Of course none of this answers the most important question; how do you survive the end of the world?
The answer is simple:
Just before the comet strikes...
...Jump.
Peter Wick
October 13, 2012
It turns out that the Mayans, The Sumerians, and Nostradamus all agreed that December 21, 2012 would mark a catastrophe for our planet.
At least we think Nostradamus agreed.
He wrote something about a ball of fire and a trail of sparks, and everyone who knows anything agreees that he meant a comet would wipe us out two months from now.
A few dissenting analysts think he just foresaw those Youtube guys who accidentally light their butts on fire. But what do they know!?
The Mayans had a five thousand year calendar that ends December 21. The Mayans, everyone knows, were gifted at predicting the future. They once predicted "The seas shall rise," and by god, sometime in the last five thousand years there were some really big waves that washed up on some stuff and got everything super wet.
They figured out how long a year on Venus lasted.
Most alarmingly, they predicted how intense Steve Buscemi would be in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire." There's a hyroglyph, on the wall of a Mayan pyramid, of a man's face that looks so much like the poster for season 3, it cannot possibly be a coincidence.
Of course, as stand-up comedian Heneghen pointed out recently, they seem to have missed that whole part where the Spaniards come and wipe them out with war and disease. But who are we to judge? Which of us has never missed the forest for the trees?
The Sumerians are a tougher nut to crack. They left lots of tablets with symbols and pictures on them, but they are all in a dead language that no one has been able to fully translate.
So, while there is a series of tablets that many interpret as saying that a "planet beyond Pluto will make it's first appearance in the Solar System since 36,000 years ago, destroying all currently existing planets," it is also possible, according to some, that these tablets alternatively say, "There's a yummy thing in my pocket that I'm not going to share with you and - oh, darn it, it's all melted now and I have to go scrub my pants on the big rock in the river."
It's just hard to say who is right.
Of course none of this answers the most important question; how do you survive the end of the world?
The answer is simple:
Just before the comet strikes...
...Jump.
Peter Wick
October 13, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
8. Curiosity - September, 2012
I don't want to sound like too much of a nerd.
I mean, I'm NOT a nerd, am I? I play soccer every Saturday. I've been talking football with some friends since the new NFL season started.
I AM NOT A NERD!
But really....I sort of am one.
I have fallen totally and completely in love with a robot.
When I last wrote in this space, two months ago, it was a silly little thing about aliens from outer space. since I wrote it, NASA has landed one of the most amazing pieces of machinery -The Curiosity Rover - on Mars. the machine is driving around our neighboring planet, taking pictures.
Curiosity has more charisma, to me, than a Movie Star. It flew thousands of miles through space, dropped onto an alien planet, and just started driving around.
The pictures - bleak, barren, empty - are absolutely stunning to me.
When I look out my bedroom window now, at the view of distant mountains circling the north and east of Los Angeles, I no longer see Los Angeles, or California, or even the United States of America. that's too small.
I see Planet Earth, hurtling through space around a hot burning ball. We are all along for the ride, with absolutely no control over our destiny.
It wouldn't take much to snuff out our entire species, to crush our little cosmic bus. It has happened to bigger balls in space.
And now we have visited another ball.
There isn't much there. No plants, no creatures. Maybe there is some water, or ice. Maybe a few of us will visit in 30 years.
I find the whole adventure invigorating.
It is a welcome distraction from the small problems we take so seriously on this little ball; who will be the next President of one of our little pieces of land; will the next little gadget be faster than the last one?
I was reading an article recently that described the next iPhone as "technology."
No, I said, almost out loud. That's not technology. That's a gadget.
"Curiosity" is technology.
I have been re-reading Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles." I had to pick it up again, especially after NASA named the spot where Curiosity landed, "Bradbury Landing."
Visiting the NASA website, I also looked up the Cassini Probe, which has been flying around a pretty big ball, Saturn, for eight years now. It is telling us a lot about a very interesting smaller ball, Saturn's moon Titan, which may have a sub-surface water ocean.
It makes you realize that all the little squabbles betwen us and our brothers and sisters (all the other human beings who may or may not look different from us) are really quite pety and small-minded.
So someone believes some religion or other. Someone hates someone else. Some country thinks they are the best country ever.
As a species, I think we need to just get over ourselves.
Quit arguing about who deserves the best seat on the cosmic bus, settle in with our family of 7 billion brothers and sisters, and enjoy the ride.
-Peter Wick
September 15, 2012
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